The Hosea Retreat: A Silent Directed Retreat

Our Hosea Retreat is for graduating high school seniors and college age students. It is intended to take our students to the next level of spiritual development. Since the time of Jesus silence has been recognized by Catholics as the premier manner of fostering a relationship with God. The title of the retreat is taken from the second chapter of the prophet Hosea in which God tells Hosea of his plans for Israel (for us): “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her.”

In Sacred Scripture the wilderness represents a place of solitude and silence where God can have us entirely alone for the purposes of hearing God’s voice. Each of the retreatants will meet individually with an adult spiritual director each of the three days to talk about their own personal spiritual journey with the adult. The spiritual directors will be three of our priests from Saint Anne as well as other parishioners who do spiritual direction.

To supplement these conversations there will be a series of short reflections offered by the adults on the spiritual life. In addition there will be reading materials on spirituality for retreatants to reflect upon. The rest of the time will be for walking the grounds, napping and sharing meals together. The Hosea Retreat will provide a great opportunity for graduating seniors to deepen their life of faith as they anticipate leaving home. It can provide college age young adults a chance to renew and deepen their faith.

The retreat is held at the Jesuit Retreat House in Barrington Hills. It begins Thursday afternoon at 1:00 PM and concludes after lunch on Saturday. The cost is $225.00. Applications can be found on the Saint Anne website, scroll down to Upcoming Registrations.